Some Balance
by NeverAPrefect
Summary: In which James and Sirius speak candidly about Lily in that most sacred of places: the pub.


The pub was nearly empty. Bit expected really, since it was a Tuesday in a rather unfashionable part of London. No young people dressed in flashy outfits on their way to discos and nightclubs, no old people complaining to each other about the state of the country or the prime minister. There were a few people lounging in booths, moodily drinking Guinness or Stella (or for those feeling particularly rotten, just whiskey). At the bar sat two young men looking frightfully exhausted as they drank their pints.

If they hadn't been so exhausted, they would have both been quite good looking. They both had black hair, though one wore it long and the other short. The boy with long hair had a vaguely aristocratic look about him and held himself in the sort of lazy way that only aristos or the very wealthy could. The other had a bit more of a restless air about him, as if it was unnatural for him to be sitting still at all. They were young, though both look as if they held the weight of the world on their shoulders. To other patrons of the dingy pub, the boys would have looked like troops in a warzone – if it weren't for their decidedly non-regulation haircuts.

The boy with the short hair took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. He sighed loudly before replacing his glasses and taking a long drink from his beer. The other boy glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and took a drink from his own beer.

'Lily'll be worried if I'm not home when she wakes up,' the boy with the glasses and short hair said, sounding more like he was thinking aloud rather than talking to his companion.

'Mate, she'll understand,' replied the boy with the long hair, 'And I think she and McKinnon had an assignment tonight. But five galleons she'll be asleep on our couch when we get home.'

The short-haired boy grunted and the two lapsed into silence for a moment. Then the short-haired boy spoke slowly, as if he wasn't entirely sure he knew what he was saying.

'Sirius, I don't know what to do with her.'

The long-haired boy – Sirius – looked at his friend as if he had just said that he was seriously contemplating chopping his arms off for a laugh, 'What? James, what are you on about?'

James sighed, 'I don't know what to do with Lily. I've been in love with her for so long that it's almost like I forgot about what else is in the world. And yeah, that's brilliant, because she's the best thing that's ever happened to me, but…I don't know what to do.'

'I'm sorry, I don't think I'm following. You lost me at "I don't know what to do with the girl I'm in love with and who's in love with me,"' Sirius replied, staring at James, 'Common sense would say you keep loving her. Maybe do a bit of a happy jig. Though when she's out of the room, of course.'

'Fuck off, mate, I'm being serious,' James looked up from his pint to fire a warning glance at his best mate, 'No pun intended.'

'I really can't understand why there's a problem.'

James sighed and turned to face Sirius, 'Think about it this way: you've got someone who means the world to you. She's perfect and she makes you happy. She's…she's…she's sunshine. She makes you believe that there's good somewhere out there because she _is_ the good. And because of that she's…everything.'

'Alright, I'm following. Can't exactly relate, but I can understand,' Sirius replied, watching his friend closely.

James looked the tiniest bit relieved that Sirius understood so far, 'But the world says "fuck all" and throws all of this shite we're fighting into the mix. And you want to fight it because you believe that it's wrong and you believe that what you're fighting for is good and just and _right_. But then there's _her_ –'

'And she's sunshine,' Sirius jumped in, gesturing at James with his pint to demonstrate his understanding.

'Yes, she's sunshine,' James shifted again, leaning a little closer to Sirius, 'And you want her because you love her more than you ever thought you could, but you also want to fight the horrible and the Death Eaters –'

'Always thought those were synonymous, myself.'

'Shut up and listen to me!' James frowned and pressed his forefinger to Sirius's lips.

'Get you fucking finger off my face and I will,' Sirius replied, eyebrows raised, 'I'm not that comfortable with physical intimacy at this stage in our relationship.'

James laughed weakly, his face relaxing slightly from its tense expression. He glanced down at his beer and ran his finger down the side, making a path in the condensation.

Sirius frowned slightly and clapped James on the shoulder, 'Alright, mate? I'll listen to you shite on now. No more interrupting.'

James looked up at Sirius. He puffed his cheeks out and slowly blew out the breath, 'It's just that Lily mean so much to me. I love her. I really do. But I also want to fight the fuckers that are out there. And in order to do that, I need to be able to always be concentrating on the mission at hand, or on the safety of whomever I'm out with. And I don't know if I can do that if the first thing on my mind is always Lily. If I'm always worrying about her, you know? And if I get scared because of her, then I can't do what I'm supposed to do as well as I need to.'

Sirius was listening intently to James now, his eyes never leaving his friend's face. The dregs of Sirius's beer sat on the bar, long forgotten as he watched and listened to James.

'I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to keep going with this and get more serious about her while knowing that I could die any day, or that somewhere down the road, she or I decide that things are too hard to make a relationship work, or that neither of us know when all this You-Know-Who shit will end and we can't just keep going, doing nothing forever,' James rambled on for a while, barely pausing for breath.

James paused to take a drink from his nearly-empty beer, 'And she's too good for this. She's the sunshine that makes it all better. I don't want to drag her any further into this and watch her get hurt or…lose that sunshine.'

Both boys sat in silence for a while, James tracing patterns on the wooden bar, Sirius watching James.

'James, mate, you really love her,' Sirius stated.

'Yeah, I do.'

'That wasn't a question,' Sirius said, 'That was a statement. You really love her. More than just the sort of love that's just that you want to be with her, but you love her in the way that you want what's best for her, even if that could have the possibility of being…not you.'

James didn't reply.

'But,' Sirius gestured to James, 'But here's the thing. For one, you're forgetting that Lily chose to get involved in all this shite in two ways. She chose to fight herself, and she chose to be with you. And that – as you pointed out – comes with a lot of worries and complications. But she _chose_ you. Fuck sake, James, you chased her for _years_ and she _finally_ decided to give you a chance. So there's that for one.'

'Yeah, but –'

'Shut up,' Sirius cut James off, 'Here's the other bit. You need balance. You can't just do all this shit that we do and then go home at the end of the day and have nothing there to distract you. We do a lot of scary shit, and the people we're up against are fucking terrifying. To take all that…sort of emotional shit home and then _wallow_ in it because there's nothing to stop you from wallowing isn't healthy. You have to have some good – some sunshine – or you'd go mad.'

Sirius sighed and shook his head, 'Mate, you're completely fucked. You need her and she needs you. For you to say that you're not sure you want to get anymore involved because of whatever-the-fuck is fucking mad. You're both already more serious about each other than I think either of you ever thought you would be. You asked her to deal with all this shit when you told her about the Order. You asked her before you ever asked her, OK? But she chose the rest of it. She chose to be with you despite all of the shit that you brought along with you. And she chose that before you ever had to ask. You gave her an out. Remember? You told her when you decided to join the Order that this was what you were going to be doing; it was going to be scary and dangerous, but this is you. And she said OK. She wants you, mate.'

James was staring at Sirius, 'Yeah?'

'Yeah,' Sirius stated, 'You love her, and she loves you. You're lucky.'

'She's never said that she loves me,' James replied, furrowing his eyebrows.

'Oh, for fuck's sake, James. She loves you,' Sirius finally finished the last of his beer.

The two sat in silence as James appeared to contemplate what his best mate had just said. Sirius set his pint glass down and picked it up a few times over, making circles on the bar top.

Sirius yawned loudly and stretched like a jungle cat, 'I'm fucking knackered. I'm all for my bed right now. That lovely, fluffy mattress will always love me and accept me the way I am…we have a healthy relationship, me and my mattress…'

James snorted, 'Keep on like that, Padfoot, and people will think you're beyond mad.'

'Prongs, people _knew_ I was beyond mad before I even started Hogwarts,' Sirius replied with a smirk.

'I've a girl waiting for me at home. Let's be off before she has my balls, shall we?' James said, getting off his barstool and extending his hand with a flourish towards the door.

'A lovely image, thanks, mate. Lily holding your balls will be ingrained in my mind for all time now...' Sirius said with a shudder as he led the way out of the pub.

'Ah, you're only jealous some girl isn't holding _your _balls.'

'Intriguing as that sounds, I am in fact not jealous.'

'Liar.'

'Am not.'


End file.
